Related Links Discussion: Thoughts About Linking to Snaps
This is a continuation of the discussion found here. How does the Snapzu community feel about "related links" linking to other snaps? Is this a good idea? What are the potential problems and benefits?
My concerns are that it's inefficient and inconvenient to link to a snap rather than just linking to the original outside source. There is already the "other snaps you may like..." feature which links to related snaps automatically, so adding snaps to "Additional Contributions" seems redundant to me. I can see linking to a snap if it's original user-created content, but maybe not if it links to an outside source? It seem like linking snaps could potentially be annoying and fragment discussion on a topic. One thing I really like about Snapzu is having one discussion taking place with multiple links to sources right there.
So, what are your thoughts?
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I like the fact that we have the option to link to other topics in an article.
I believe this should not be regulated.
Reposts are bound to happen no matter what. One of them will inevitably receive more votes than the others, and the others, if relevant, will then be added as related links.
This is all manageable.
The only issue I can think of (and it is indeed a bit problematic) is when people are going to downvote something because it is a repost, and then the poster will lose his reputation score.
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I also like that we have the option to link to other snaps. Reposts are going to happen. I just wish there was a better way to point out to someone that they have a repost other than downvoting them. I have thought about this issue a lot and really don't have a solution. it is not a problem for me to remove a snap,it does not take a lot to do that.
I routinely remove snaps and add them as related links, and it is a bit annoying, but not that big a deal if the snap hasn't gotten any attention yet anyway. This whole issue came up because I was going to remove a snap and re-add it as a link, but the snap had been linked to the snap I was going to add the link to!
I also don't like downvoting to report a repost. Unless it is the exact same content, and it was just posted recently, that doesn't make much sense to me.
Reposting can be a frustrating issue, and it really is unavoidable no matter how hard you try! I love being able to link to other content, I was just wondering if linking to other snaps was necessary or not. Do you like having snaps be linked together through the "related links" feature? Do you think a merging or grouping feature would make more sense?
Sometimes a snap is more than just a main link. Content modules, contributed related links and their votes, comment threads; the whole can easily be more than a main link. When I add a snap as a related link, I've adopted the convention of putting ‘[Snap]’ at the end of the title, same as with [Audio], [Video], or [PDF].
So wish the feed page signified somehow when a snap was more than just a main link. It shows how many comments there are, but nothing about how many content modules. Either that, or that there was another type of snap like ‘Topic’ that, instead of taking you through to the main link, takes you to the snap page.
That's a very good point. You're right that Snaps can have a lot of content to them, not just a single link.
I think we should leave it as it is. Adding a link to a snap related to it not only brings additional content such as another source, but also different comments from people here. Being allowed to just add outside links means that you would lose on the content of the comments from Snapzu.
To be honest I don't mind reposts, especially with the amount of new people trickling in every week, they will not have had the opportunity to see the old posts. If you know it's a repost and it annoys you, downvote. If you don't care, don't vote.
Thanks for all the feedback in regards to this, please keep the discussion going. I will need a bit to digest all the suggestions/feedback before I open my mouth.
Reposting, that is to say lots of people posting links to a single event or topic in a similar time frame, is commonly perceived as a problem on social media like this. I think it's a strength where people can see multiple perspectives on the event or topic rather than be funneled into a single perspective based on whomever posted first. So we either end up with multiple snaps on the same topic or we can see multiple perspectives within the same snaps. Thus: related links.
I don't have a problem with multiple snaps or related links or both. When I see someone has posted on the same topic from a different source I point to that snap because I want viewers to see that it's there. I think you should get just as much credit for posting as I did rather than hog it all because I happened to get there first. There was a discussion last week (I can't find it, of course) about how to handle reposting and if it would be possible or advisable to merge links. I think cross-linking snaps through relevant links would be a good way to identify which snaps could be merged.
I do like the idea of grouping and/or merging! I would love to be able to easily merge my snap with another, because deleting it and then adding it as a related link somewhere else is annoying. It gets even trickier if the post gets up-voted or links are added, because then I don't feel like I can just delete it as usual. Maybe the merging thing would resolve this whole issue? I'm certainly in favor of it if it can be arranged.
I'm sorry I missed that other discussion, but I'm glad it's a sticky. :)
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I think that it's a fantastic idea to allow other viewpoints, but we should just be able to enter a link to the source rather then to another snap. It's just more convenient that way.